Solomon's Song

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Yeah, yeah, you’ll keep, Teekleman,’ Black Jack Treloar growls. ‘I’ll be lookin’ for you, mate.’

  Ben has taken three or four steps down the corridor but now stops. ‘I’m not hard to find, Sergeant, try leaving a note on the noticeboard in the sergeants’ mess.’

  The first two days on board are spent settling in, cleaning the Broadmeadows mud from their uniforms and polishing their brass while at the same time, in the ship’s parlance, ‘getting their sea legs’, which proves to be a good thing, for even in the relatively calm seas Numbers Cooligan is sick as a dog while, surprisingly, the remainder of the platoon seems unaffected.

  Cabin inspection is followed by physical jerks on the main deck and then breakfast. After which there is rifle drill and musketry practice, though no actual firing takes place. The day then takes on a familiar routine which will continue in much the same way when the convoy sets off overseas. With route marches and many of the other tedious and time-consuming tasks eliminated for want of space the time is taken up with specialist training. Men are selected for all the arcane occupations demanded by a killing machine and are turned into signallers, sappers, machine-gun operators, snipers, clerks, stretcher-bearers and just plain soldiers with a little bit of everything thrown in, though the fundamentals of army discipline are maintained throughout the five-day voyage.

  However, talk of the corridor confrontation between Sergeants Ben Teekleman and Black Jack Treloar has spread through the ship. There is a great deal of speculation as to who would get the better of whom in a fight. The fights are on every night in a ring set up on the foredeck and named by the troops ‘The Stoush Palace’. It proves to be the most popular entertainment on board and Black Jack Treloar is always there, sometimes acting as a referee and on three occasions even entering the ring himself.

  On the first occasion he knocks out his opponent in the opening round and on the next occasion the referee ends the fight in the first minute of the second round, awarding it to Treloar on a t.k.o., the third is another knockout towards the end of the second round. Treloar is a fighter who likes to work the ropes, pushing his opponent into a corner and letting him have it with a barrage from both fists, relying on his strength and aggression to batter through his opponent’s defence and put him on the canvas. All three bouts end with a spectacular uppercut and Numbers Cooligan, pronouncing himself an expert, calls Treloar ‘a one-punch Johnny’. Treloar’s flailing fists invariably force his opponent to his knees while he hangs onto the ropes, whereupon the sapper sergeant takes great delight in delivering the coup de grâce to his undefended chin.

  There is something about the way Black Jack fights that makes the audience yearn for an opponent who will take him on. All of the men who climb into the ring with him are game enough but have little previous experience of the sport. They are big blokes, but generally clumsy with their fists and don’t know their way around the square canvas. Some may know how to mix it well enough in a pub brawl but getting the hang of the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules and a pair of ten-ounce boxing gloves proves quite another matter. It is obvious that Treloar has the advantage of previous experience in the ring as well as being enormously strong in short bursts. He is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the Orvieto, though the audience is reluctant to talk him up.

  After the confrontation in the corridor, Ben’s name is most often cited as the opponent they would like to see, though it is not known whether Ben is a boxer and even if he was he would be a light–heavy, giving Treloar at least a twenty-pound advantage in the ring.

  After the way Treloar has disposed of his opponents there are no more contenders for the heavyweight division but there are few outside his own platoon who believe he has earned the title fair dinkum and it is plain he is neither respected nor admired. There is something of the braggart about him, he is rough trade and his platoon of sappers, who are going to war with picks and shovels, is made up of men who have been labourers all their lives and fit much the same description. By way of contrast they take great pride in their fighting sergeant and they begin to taunt Ben’s platoon, giving it the sobriquet ‘Sergeant Chopper and the Bang Bangs’. Passing a member of Ben’s platoon they’ll aim an imaginary rifle and say, ‘Bang bang you’re dead!’

  It is childish stuff but nevertheless humiliating and, while none of Ben’s platoon will say so, they all secretly wish Ben was as effective with his fists as he is with an axe and that he’d climb into the ring and give Treloar the licking he deserves. They do not have any doubts about their sergeant’s courage but would like him to be the instrument of Treloar’s demise, bringing the incident in the corridor to its rightful conclusion with the good bloke triumphing over the bully.

  Though Ben has won the war of words, the men hunger to see the living shit beaten out of Black Jack Treloar so that there will be no more conjecture. With young warriors the word has never been mightier than the sword. It is not only the incident in the corridor that gives the speculation impetus but also the fact that Ben Teekleman has on a second occasion single-handedly put

  Treloar’s platoon in its place, though unfortunately it does not directly involve Black Jack Treloar.

  On the third night out at sea when Ben’s platoon is bedded down on deck, six members of Treloar’s platoon, no doubt with his tacit approval, decide to teach Ben’s platoon a lesson. The story has become somewhat embellished in the retelling, receiving a good start towards mythical status at the hands of Numbers Cooligan, whose accurate accounting is strictly reserved for arithmetical calculations.

  However, Library Spencer has written the incident down in the illicit diary the army has forbidden soldiers to keep. His version is without the Cooligan flair but has the virtue of being scrupulously accurate.

  They are crossing the Great Australian Bight with the sea uncharacteristically calm and with a full moon in a cloudless sky making the deck seem almost in daylight. Around one in the morning Crow Rigby, who has been placed on guard duty by Ben, sees six men approaching, carrying what can be clearly seen as pick handles. He shakes Ben awake. ‘Reckon we’ve got visitors, Sergeant,’ he says quietly.

  Ben rises quickly. ‘How many?’

  ‘Six, they’ve got pick handles.’

  Ben takes Crow Rigby by the elbow and guides him behind a large packing case lashed to the deck so that they can’t be seen by the advancing men. The six would-be attackers move forward in a half-crouch, with one of them four feet or so ahead. He holds his hand up as an indication to advance slowly and quietly. When he is close enough to the first of the sleeping men, Ben leaps from behind the packing cases with an ear-piercing cry and Crow Rigby sees for the first time that he carries his fighting axe. Before the forward man has time to lift his pick handle Ben has jabbed the blunt end of the axe handle hard into the attacker’s mouth, taking out several of his front teeth in the process. The soldier gives a startled howl and before he has time to sink to his knees Ben has reached the next man, slapping him on the side of the jaw with the axe head and sending him sprawling to the deck, the pick handle flying from his hands. The third attacker has managed to get the pick handle above his head and as he brings it down Ben parries the blow by holding the fighting axe at each end, then in a lightning-fast gesture he scrapes the axe handle along the pick handle and down onto the hands of the third attacker, breaking his grip and his fingers so that the pick handle clatters to the deck and the man lets out a cry of sudden pain. The axe handle swings up in a curve and smashes into the man’s face and there is an audible crack as his nose breaks and he is thrown backwards by the force of the blow to land hard on his arse.

  The first two men lie moaning and sobbing sprawled on the deck unable to rise as the third attempts to get to his knees, clutching at his face with one hand while steadying himself with the other. Ben turns to face the next in line but the remaining three attackers turn and flee for their lives.

  ‘Shit!’ Crow Rigby says softly, it has all happened in less than fifteen seconds. Th
e rest of the platoon, wakened by Ben’s bloodcurdling yell, are barely out of their blankets and on their feet, still somewhat bleary-eyed, when the fight is over. The platoon watches in noisy amazement as the three men on the deck try to get to their feet.

  ‘Quiet, everyone,’ Ben commands. ‘Help these men to their feet. Private Crow, Private Horne, you too, Private Cooligan.’ He is puffing slightly from the sudden rush of adrenaline, but his voice remains calm. The platoon watches in silence as the three privates pull their attackers to their feet and they see for the first time the extent of the damage the axe has done to their collective physiognomies. ‘Fuck me dead!’ Cooligan says, expressing it adequately for them all.

  Ben addresses the three men. ‘You all right, lads? Can you walk?’ All three nod, the blood from their faces dripping down their chins and onto the deck. ‘Righto, no names, no pack drill. Tell the M.O. in the morning that you fell down the stairs or you had a stoush, whatever.’ Ben points to the three pick handles lying on the deck. ‘Pick those up, lad,’ he says to an infantryman named John Parthe who is referred to by the platoon as Muddy. Then turning back to the three wounded sappers he says, ‘We’ll keep the pick handles, tell your sergeant if he wants to recover them he can post a note on the board in the sergeants’ mess. Got that?’ The three men nod unhappily, two now have their hands clamped over their mouths, the third over his broken nose. The blood oozing through their fingers can be clearly seen in the moonlight. ‘Righto, on your bicycles. As far as No. 2 Platoon, B company, known to one and all as the Clicks, are concerned nothing happened tonight, right? Or would you rather face the C.O. in the morning?’

  The three soldiers shake their heads and turn away, stumbling into a half-trot, their hands still clamped to their faces as they make for the hatchway at the far end of the deck. Ben turns to his platoon. ‘Let’s get some sleep. Well done, Private Rigby, you’re off guard duty, get some sleep. Private Spencer, you’re on guard.’ Ben glances in the direction of the three departing men. ‘Stupid bastards didn’t even have the sense to wait for a dark night.’

  Numbers Cooligan laughs. ‘London to a brick them buggers won’t be back.’ He turns to Ben. ‘I has me doubts we can sleep after that, Sergeant.’

  ‘It’s an order, Cooligan,’ Ben says, stooping to pick up his own blanket.

  ‘Jesus, why don’t they issue us with them fightin’ axes instead of a stupid bloody bayonet?’ Hornbill says ruefully as he wraps his blanket about him. ‘Germans would shit ’emselves!’

  While Treloar has been strutting his stuff in the boxing ring, he has been careful to avoid Ben. The story of the incident has inevitably reached the other sergeants who approach Ben for confirmation, but all he will say is that there has been a little rough and tumble on deck and that it has been sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction.

  The three men from Treloar’s platoon, reporting to the ship’s hospital the following morning, claim to the medical orderly that they had been negotiating the steel steps down a hatchway in the dark when the man at the rear missed his footing and collided with the other two, sending them all crashing below decks. A later inspection would show that two light bulbs were missing over the offending steps, though the ship’s doctor, examining them, pronounces himself mystified that no other bruises appear on their bodies. ‘You’ve been fighting, haven’t you? What were you using, knuckledusters?’ When the men deny this the M.O. shakes his head. ‘I’ll have to have confirmation from your sergeant, who’s your sergeant?’

  ‘Sergeant Treloar, sir,’ the sapper with the broken nose and whose name is Brodie replies, being the only one of the three able to speak.

  ‘Treloar, the boxer?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  The doctor waves a hand, indicating their faces, ‘And you’re sure this didn’t come about in a fight?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I’ll have to hear that from your sergeant.’ The M.O. turns to one of the medics. ‘Send a message to Sergeant Treloar to report to me at once.’ He looks at Brodie. ‘What’s your company?’

  ‘D Company, sir, Sappers.’ The medic nods and leaves them.

  Black Jack Treloar arrives twenty minutes later and confirms that the men are telling the truth and blithely signs the medical report. The M.O. shakes his head, ‘I’m not at all sure I shouldn’t take this up with your C.O., Sergeant, damned peculiar fall.’

  Treloar looks directly at the doctor. ‘I agree, sir, and would have thought no different, but it happened on the hatchway stairs aft and I just happened to be close, so I seen it meself. Them bulbs, the lights were missin’.’

  ‘Why weren’t the men brought in right away, there’s always a doctor on duty?’

  Treloar chuckles quietly. ‘Well, you know how it is with young lads, sir? They’re in the A.I.F. First Division, they didn’t wanna be seen as milksops, sir.’

  ‘Sergeant, I’ve a good mind to put you on report, you have a duty to look after your men, these are not minor injuries!’

  ‘Be obliged if you wouldn’t, sir. The lads begged me. They didn’t wanna be seen as the laughing stock, there’s a lot of pride in the sappers, sir. Fallin’ down stairs, it’d be humiliatin’, sir.’

  ‘A fair whack of stupidity too, if you ask me!’

  ‘No, sir, with the greatest respect, pride, sapper pride, not stupidity, sir.’ Treloar would like to put his boot into the M.O.’s groin, silly bastard wouldn’t know what side was up. He’s only a bloody captain, he thinks, straight off civvy street and now he’s playing the fucking warrior doctor.

  ‘Well, I’ll overlook it this time, Sergeant Treloar, though it’s against my better judgment. Don’t let it happen again or I’ll see your C.O. is involved.’

  Treloar jumps spontaneously to attention and salutes, ‘Yessir! Thank you, sir!’

  ‘Dismissed,’ the M.O. says in a weary voice.

  The three men are placed in the ship’s hospital for two days, Brodie to have his nose reset and his hands placed in plaster and the two others, Matthews and Jolly, requiring copious stitches to the lips and mouth and the extraction of several broken teeth, which will be done by the ship’s surgeon. There is no dentist on board because in the first A.I.F. intake the standard of recruiting was set so high that a single tooth missing in a recruit’s mouth would disqualify him.

  Ben, hearing in the sergeants’ mess that the three men have been hospitalised, goes to see them late on the afternoon of the day following the incident. On arrival he asks a medic if he can see the three men from D Company. ‘You’ll have to see Sister Atkins first, Sergeant,’ the medic replies.

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘Wait here, I’ll fetch her.’

  Ben is made to wait, standing in the ship’s hospital corridor for nearly twenty minutes before he sees Sister Atkins approaching. He has a mind to say something, show her he’s a trifle miffed, but a nursing sister, without apparent rank, is given the status of an officer and so he decides to keep his trap shut. Moreover, as she draws closer, she smiles at him and Ben feels his heart skip a beat. A troopship is an unlikely place to fall in love but Ben knows with certainty, even before she has spoken, that he must make every endeavour to develop a closer acquaintance with Sister Atkins. Please, God, don’t let her have a sweetheart somewhere, he says to himself, knowing full well that anyone as pretty would not go unattended.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant, I’m told you wish to see the three men who came in this morning?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘Are you their sergeant?’ Her voice is light and bright and she smiles again so that the question doesn’t appear to be overly officious.

  ‘No, er, they’re involved with my platoon, I just want to see if they’re all right,’ Ben replies a little sheepishly.

  ‘Well, they’re not going to die, Sergeant, if that’s what you mean? But they’ve had a nasty fall.’ She puts her head to one side as though she is examining him more closely. ‘We don’t usually allow visitors.’

  ‘I won�
��t take long, Sister.’

  Sister Atkins laughs. ‘I’ll say you won’t, five minutes is all you’ll get.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’ He is suddenly desperate to think of something to say that will impress her but his mind has turned to mashed potatoes.

  ‘Right, follow me, Sergeant er . . . ?’

  ‘Teekleman, Ben Teekleman, Sister.’ Then he adds gratuitously, ‘From Tasmania.’

  ‘Tasmania? How nice. I have a cousin in Tasmania, though I don’t suppose you’d know her, Lucy Atkins?’

  Ben is walking beside her and he receives the slightest whiff of lavender water which is enough to send his head spinning. ‘Don’t suppose I do, but there was a Lucy Atkins in primary school once?’

  ‘Oh, sure, your sister’s best friend, was she?’

  It is obvious that Sister Atkins has not gone unnoticed on the ship and is up to all the tricks men play with a pretty woman in an attempt to prolong a conversation.

  ‘No really, in New Norfolk, red hair, green eyes, lots of freckles, her mum and dad ran, still do I suppose, the drapery shop.’

  Sister Atkins stops, her eyes grown wide. ‘My goodness, Sergeant Ben Teekleman, you do know my cousin Lucy!’

  They have reached the ward door and Sister Atkins enters first and steps ahead, Ben following two or three steps behind her. The ward contains some twenty men. There has been an outbreak of flu on board and there have been several cases of pneumonia as a consequence. Ben silently bemoans the fact that they have effectively come to the end of their conversation.

  Sister Atkins stops at the last three beds. ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ she says cheerfully. The three sappers sit up in bed and from their expressions it is fairly apparent to the nursing sister that Ben’s arrival doesn’t exactly thrill them. ‘Hmmph, you don’t seem too happy about it?’ she says, straightening up Brodie’s blanket.

  ‘Thank you, Sister,’ Brodie says without enthusiasm. The space between his eyes and mouth is swathed in a large bandage, while the damage to the swollen lips of the other two soldiers is uncovered and the ragged criss-cross of stitches can be readily seen.